Tea is typically brewed by placing tea leaves in a filter which is placed in hot water for a period of time to permit the tea leaves to steep in the hot water.
In a conventional automatic drip coffeemaker, heated water is delivered to a filter basket and infused into coffee grounds in the basket. This produces brewed coffee which drains through an outlet port in the bottom of the filter basket and into a carafe supported beneath the filter basket. Conventional automatic drip coffeemakers may be used to brew tea but usually without uniform results. An automatic drip coffeemaker does not provide a reliable control over the period of time during which the tea leaves are steeped in hot water. One problem is that tea leaves are preferably steeped for a period of time, but the heated water in an automatic drip coffeemaker will often pass too quickly through the tea leaves. Also, tea leaves can clog the drain port of a coffee filter basket in which case the heated incoming water may overflow the filter basket.
There are tea makers which have a reusable filter in a carafe closed by a lid. The filter may be removably suspended from the rim of the carafe body and hot water poured through the filter. These have the advantage that the user can remove the filter when the desired strength of the brewed tea is reached. Of course, they are not suitable for brewing coffee.